Prompt: In The Passionate Teacher, Ron Fried describes the Game of School (GOS) as what happens when teachers and students forsake intellectual work and instead engage in their classes as rituals. Take this opportunity to consider this chapter in light of some of the the other experiences that you've had this semester. What elements of the game of school are you seeing in your placements? How have you seen teachers fight the game of school in their classes? What similarities, if any, did you see between the descriptions of American classes in the Teaching Gap and the Game of School? Finally, what impact will this description of the GOS have on your own approach to teaching as expressed in your teaching philosophy?
Observations:
I have seen several students who appear to be trying to play the Game of School (GoS). This has been displayed by things such as trying to claim they didn't know a due date on an assignment, or asking how much will it affect their grade if they do not dress up for their presentation (the requirement being to dress as the scientist they researched), trying to do the minimum to get by. I have seen students try and fake a teacher's mark on assignments that are checked for completion only. However, my cooperating teacher seems to be trying in many ways not to play the game while still not creating too much extra work for herself. She does things like collect students notes that they took during their reading and instead of just checking that they have some, she looks for completeness and key information being present. After the read aloud portion at the beginning of each class, she asks the students some questions, one being about the previous days lesson and the next being about the lesson they will have that day. As she collects the responses from the students, she is able to see how much retention is occurring from one day to the next, or from the reading the night before. She can see if the students are just doing enough to meet the requirements of the assignment or if they are truly engaging in and comprehending the subject. When students claim not to have realized a due date she shows them the board that outlines all the due dates for outstanding assignments that is always updated and in the same place every day.
Reflections:
One thing that my cooperating teacher does that I intend to do in my own classroom is to keep records of all the lessons she has, noting what has and hasn't worked in the past, keeping good and bad knowing that depending on the makeup of the students in the class she may want to use any of the previous years items again. She even knows which assignments she thought would be interesting and engaging for her students but which they essentially just "pencil-whipped" to get them done and out of the way, which I think is an invaluable reference. She often uses the test generators and worksheets provided with the textbook, but as a starting point, not as a replacement for thoughtful planning of exams and homework assignments. She uses them for specific examples but still writes mostly open-ended, mostly subjective assessments that require students to use higher level thinking than just recall. I hadn't previously seen a high school chemistry test that included so many essay-style, open-ended questions that required students to either come up with their own scenario that would fit the question or recall not only names of scientists individually to pair with their atomic theory discovery but six scientists at the same time, requiring them to discuss the impact of each scientist's discoveries and how it relates to today. These questions are amazing to me and designed to help students develop not only their knowledge of chemistry, their critical thinking skills, but also their writing skills that are needed on the NECAP exams. I hope to be able to develop tests like these myself so that I can help build more well-rounded students.
Class Topic: Chemistry Grade: 10, 11, 12 Observed by: Sarah Evans
Observations:
I have seen several students who appear to be trying to play the Game of School (GoS). This has been displayed by things such as trying to claim they didn't know a due date on an assignment, or asking how much will it affect their grade if they do not dress up for their presentation (the requirement being to dress as the scientist they researched), trying to do the minimum to get by. I have seen students try and fake a teacher's mark on assignments that are checked for completion only. However, my cooperating teacher seems to be trying in many ways not to play the game while still not creating too much extra work for herself. She does things like collect students notes that they took during their reading and instead of just checking that they have some, she looks for completeness and key information being present. After the read aloud portion at the beginning of each class, she asks the students some questions, one being about the previous days lesson and the next being about the lesson they will have that day. As she collects the responses from the students, she is able to see how much retention is occurring from one day to the next, or from the reading the night before. She can see if the students are just doing enough to meet the requirements of the assignment or if they are truly engaging in and comprehending the subject. When students claim not to have realized a due date she shows them the board that outlines all the due dates for outstanding assignments that is always updated and in the same place every day.Reflections:
One thing that my cooperating teacher does that I intend to do in my own classroom is to keep records of all the lessons she has, noting what has and hasn't worked in the past, keeping good and bad knowing that depending on the makeup of the students in the class she may want to use any of the previous years items again. She even knows which assignments she thought would be interesting and engaging for her students but which they essentially just "pencil-whipped" to get them done and out of the way, which I think is an invaluable reference. She often uses the test generators and worksheets provided with the textbook, but as a starting point, not as a replacement for thoughtful planning of exams and homework assignments. She uses them for specific examples but still writes mostly open-ended, mostly subjective assessments that require students to use higher level thinking than just recall. I hadn't previously seen a high school chemistry test that included so many essay-style, open-ended questions that required students to either come up with their own scenario that would fit the question or recall not only names of scientists individually to pair with their atomic theory discovery but six scientists at the same time, requiring them to discuss the impact of each scientist's discoveries and how it relates to today. These questions are amazing to me and designed to help students develop not only their knowledge of chemistry, their critical thinking skills, but also their writing skills that are needed on the NECAP exams. I hope to be able to develop tests like these myself so that I can help build more well-rounded students.Class Topic: Chemistry
Grade: 10, 11, 12
Observed by: Sarah Evans